He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with
constant low fever that during the month of January he was obliged to
keep his bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became
very uneasy about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark:
"Let him alone; don't you see it is only some Olympian trouble?" This
remark, being repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair;
he left his bed, went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered his
health.
About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at the
Jockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus to
let the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga.
"There's nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl; but
if the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall be
lowered in her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future."
"Ha! this, too!" exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh.
"Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be forever
quits,--though, indeed, I am your debtor now."
"Adam, you will have children; don't gamble any more," said Paz.
"So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs," cried the
countess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity to
Paz. "First, ten thousand, now twenty more,--thirty thousand! the
income of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera,
and the whole fortune of many a bourgeois.
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